He found that people rated commercials with dramatic plotlines – the same story arcs favored by classicists like William Shakespeare – significantly higher than ads without clear exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement.

“People think it’s all about sex or humor or animals, but what we’ve found is that the underbelly of a great commercial is whether it tells a story or not,” Quesenberry said.

This year, a Super Bowl spot cost $US4 million for 30 seconds.

Keith Quesenberry

Even with 11 million viewers, Quesenberry said advertisers were looking for more – they want to have a commercial that goes viral online. This year, he predicted, that ad will be Budweiser’s tear-jerker about a puppy’s friendship with a horse.

The more complete the story told by a marketer in their commercials, he says, the higher it performs in the ratings polls, the more people like it, want to view it, and share it.

Quesenberry’s prediction about the Budweiser commercial being the most successful viral ad from the football final may well prove correct, with the one-minute ad having had 43 million views on YouTube at the time of writing.